japes;4126043; said:
Stay off them? Can't see how my query is anything other than valid, and no offence was intended - as I said, it's impossible to judge from a couple of still photographs.
That was a query?
Oh I'm so sorry. My bad. I apologize. I just really get ticked off when people say I pass deformed fish onto my friends. Of course they don't mean offense. It's must be my childhood issues.
I also somehow confused it with one of those baseless attacks where people smear others' fish to show how they themselves are so much more knowledgeable and care so much more about their own fish. It's particularly insulting that many of them have never seen a wild fish, don't know squat about what they are talking about, and don't care how they make others feel about their fish - their pride and joy. I obviously misunderstood your post and, please, forgive me.
To address your query though, I bought them from Grey, who handles all online orders for one of the largest fish importers in the US. He sold them to me for $8 a piece as wild fish. I trusted him -
1) because he has been brutally honest with me;
2) because he has 2 negative reviews out of 500 on Aquabid;
3) because they always quarantine wild fish for weeks before selling them and never do so unless their are in good condition;
4) because I've bought thousands of dollars worth of fish from them and received zero deformed ones;
5) because more than once he has refused to take my money for fish that were 10x more expensive than these because he thought they weren't ready
6) because he is also selling tank raised M. festivum for $2 less than these and I didn't think he would risk their impeccable reputation for merely 2 dollars
But of course I didn't see these fish born in the wild, grow in the wild, and caught from the wild. Some random people on the internet could very well know something that I don't.
The vast majority of people on this site don't comment that other people's fish are deformed unless they are absolutely certain, because it's easy to run their mouths but so much harder to live with the doubt that something might be wrong with their fish. After all, this is a hobby that we do for fun, not a contest to see who's got the best-looking and rarest fish.
If you don't understand this, I suggest that you tell every guy you meet on the street how ugly their wives look, and make/share a photolog of your face.
One final note - please don't feel bad. I post so many negative and derogatory comments on others' fish and nobody likes me anyways. I really should try to solve me real-life problems...
they are awesome fish. i have one large one who shows completely different coloration than the smaller ones, less yellow on the body and more pink/red in anal, but is a little harder to photograph. it also came from another person in our club.
